Douchebag: Bros Before Hos

Sam Nussbaum (Andrew Dickler), his Taliban-length beard an extension of his mullah-like self-righteousness about organic produce and bicycling, is about to marry Steph (Marguerite Moreau) in less than a week. The inexplicably smitten bride-to-be, determined to reunite her sanctimonious fiancé with his estranged younger brother, Tom (Ben York Jones), for their nuptials, fetches the callow sib, who immediately resumes the passive role to Sam's top dog. The bullying/withdrawing dynamic continues as the brothers set out to find Tom's fifth-grade girlfriend to bring as his wedding date, a road trip that allows Sam, who keeps putting off his tux-fitting, to behave in piggy ways that will surprise no one. Like Humpday, the terror of female control motivates the acting-out in Douchebag; unlike that film, director Drake Doremus uses its lead's obnoxious behavior as a teachable moment. As the Nussbaum boys complete their emotional arcs, Steph is relegated to brief moments of anxious cell-phone clutching. Two scenes—one in a roller rink, the other in a motel room—prove that Doremus (who co-wrote the script with three others, including Dickler) can transcend micro-budgeted American cinema boilerplate. But in its rushed, implausible moment of reckoning, Douchebag ends up validating the frat-boy credo: Bros before hos.